Windows fanboys “?”, Mac Fanboys quiet, Linux Fanboys bitching.

Yes its so far, Mac OSX has a decent marketshare and they are quiet, some are even willing to install windows 7 on bootcamp. If you would have asked that from an OSX fanboy 2 years ago he would have came to visit you with a bazooka. Anyway, this is a result of their rise in marketshare, they are less frustrated and actually becoming objective. 

Windows fanboys, well they have nothing to complain about, they still have 88%. Think about it, 1.000$ is divided between three children, one gets 85$ (Mac OSX), one gets 880$ (Windows) and one gets 8,5$ (Linux). Which one will be frustrated?

So there is another group with a very small marketshare : The Linux Community!
Representing 0,85% of all PC users they think they own the world and the are 100% convinced that Linux will run on 60% of all desktops within 2 years, I present to you : The Linux community.
Now that Apple fanboys finally do shut up, Linux fanboys become arrogant and insulting, why? How can a fly be arrogant to a cheetah and a lion? Well yeah, we all know the answer, flies are irritating.

So message to the Linux fanboys : SHUT THE F*CK UP AND DISCOVER REALISM!

The end is near for Linux, at least for its popularity… or not?

Recent announcements of Windows 7 chook the entire world and microsoft didn’t even say anything, people are. One of the articles that I came across was about the use of Windows 7 on netbooks and I started thinking.

Apple is releasing Mac OSX 10.6 in a while which will make Mac OSX even more stable and probably the fastest OS on the earth.
It’s kind of an Xbox-effect, Mac OSX 10.6 will be released before Windows 7, so it should have an advantage, but…
Windows 7 is already so popular that it has approximately 1,5% of global marketshare which means that Apple will have to come up with something good to get Windows 7 out of the people’s heads.

Did you notice how I didn’t mention Linux? Well what’s there to mention, Ubuntu, the most popular distro has released its latest version a while ago and it wasn’t very special, I hope Ubuntu 9.04 will be more innovative. And for a non commercial OS it has to be. The last chance for Linux, as OS on netbooks is also endangered. Windows 7 will run on netbooks as well, it will even have a direct-on button for simple tasks and will have a lot higher performance. What do you think people would use? Linux or their favorite windows? Well here in Belgium it’s clear, 3/4 of all Linux netbooks are returned to the store after people find out that there is Linux on there instead of Windows, they now even prefer a 6 year old Windows OS above a brand new Linux distro. Says enough doesn’t it?  I don’t think Linux stands much of chance, people will eventually choose Windows above linux, because they are used to it.

My conclusion is that there will be a war next year between the 2 biggest OS’s Mac OSX Snowy Leopard and Windows 7. Linux will have to watch how the two endanger its marketshare. Of course this will not be the end of Linux since it is community driven, but you’d better prepare for a Linux with 0,3% marketshare instead of 0,85%. Unless Ubuntu 9.04 is there to save the day with a superfast booting OS. 

So the big cat and lucky seven are fighting but the penguin is not invited. And apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that way. Tons of blog posts were released of Windows 7 pulverizing Linux. That’s obviously a different attitude than the one at Vista’s release but at the moment you can’t really tell it will go either way or another, so it might turn out a completely other way.
This is just what I think will happen. 

Linux is dead (or isn't it?)

The top 20 free photo editing applications

One of the most commonly used applications is the photo editor. Professional and hobbyist all like to edit pictures. From making artworks of every picture to just giving grandma a weird looking nose, here they are, the top 20 free photo editors as displayed on Download.com in popularity :

1. IrfanView 4.2 :
This application is known as one of the first photo viewers and editors that had decent capabilities and this success led it to over 35 million downloads. The top points of IrfanView are that it can easily handle all image filetypes around. For some you have to install a plugin, but anyway you can handle and edit nearly every image filetype around. Another positive feature is that it is only 1,25Mb in size. Available for Windows Only.

 

2. PhotoScape 3.2 :
This is probably one of the fastest growing image editors ever in popularity. In 1 year time it grew from 20.000 to 900.000 downloads and with reason. Although PhotoScape does not have the large amount of in- and output formats of other viewers, it has a unique and easy interface and many tools to do nearly anything to your images. 

 

3. Paint .NET 3.36
One of the many photoshop clones that made it in the hard world of software. Paint .NET is a light flexible application that wraps most functions of Photoshop in an easy interface which is familiar to many people. It support many of the basic features of Photoshop and is a standard for all free image utilities. 

 

4. FastStone Image Viewer 3.6
This Faststone is focused on displaying images. A lot of images. It has advanced abilities to display most common image filetypes available on this orb we call earth and edit them fast and with ease. It is small and supports most basic image editing operations. It probably the best tool to manage images around.

5. GIMP 2.6.0
Does this image editor need introduction for most graphics artists? It is always one step beyond on other free photoshop alternatives and it is probably the alternative with the most functions which supports the most platforms. It supports Windows as well as Linux and Mac OSX. Beware : Beginning users will fear the many windows GIMP consists of.

6. FastStone Photo Resizer 2.7
Ah, the second FastStone. This one is the best Batch photo resizer around. It resizes your pictures at high speed to any size. It is stable and small as well as easy in use. Once again as its brothers, it supports a high amount of filetypes.

 7. XnView 1.94.2
XnView is the cross-platform version of IrfanView. Fast, efficient and supporting nearly any filetype, XnView is a standard application on all linux systems and maybe also on your PC? Basic operations are possible and just like IrfanView, you can also view or play music and other multimedia files. What we call an all-rounder.

 

 8. Image Resizer 1.1
A small version of FastStone’s Image resize. This image resizer only supports BMP, GIF and JPEG. It has Batch functions, is fast and is easy to use. It just gets the job done!

9. DriveHQ Batch Photo Editor 1.8.025
A basic image editing application which focuses on most common operators and the uploading of your creations. As the name states it has many Batch Functions including conversion, resizing, rotating, cropping and many others. It is easy in use and is the best tool to get your creations ready and online for free!

10. 36-image converter 4.4.5.30
This noble stranger is the fairest of them all with its magnificent black interface. It supports many input (36) and many output (21) filetypes and is a true image converter. It also has a whole bunch of effects/masks/frames/brushes available and has an extensive help file and tutorial.  Also supports image encryption.

WinPhix Blog Online

You still have to wait for the official winphix site, but here is the blog. We will give you reviews, test and tips on the latest technology and software.